Auctionet
Delivery time to the end customer went from 17 to 7 days. Same logistics centres, no extra hours. Teams mapped the flow and cut the waiting.
Online auction marketplace
Read the case (opens in a new tab)Busy teams aren’t the goal. Work that flows is.
Operational excellence means getting better at how work gets done, every week, and keeping the gains.
One customer order, start to finishExample
An example order takes 10 days from order to delivery. Someone works on it for about 4 hours in three short steps: order entered (2 hours), picked and packed (1 hour), shipped (1 hour). It waits for the rest, about 9.8 days. Flow efficiency is 1.7 percent.
01What it is
Operational excellence means improving how work flows
The goal is more value for customers, delivered more reliably. It’s led by the people who do the work, and it isn’t a single method. Lean, Six Sigma, daily management and continuous improvement are all ways to get there. What they share is a shift in what you pay attention to: not whether everyone is busy, but how long work takes to reach the customer, and where it waits on the way.
Four stages, in this order
Capability builds in a sequence. Skipping a stage is one of the most common reasons improvements fade.
01
Understand
Map how work actually moves today: where it starts, where it waits, and what the customer receives.
“Do we agree on how our work flows today?”
02
Standardise
Agree on the best known way to do the work, so there is something to improve from.
“Is there one way we do this, or five?”
03
Visualise
Show the state of the work so problems surface within hours, not in the month-end report.
“Would a newcomer spot a problem on our board?”
04
Routinise
Keep a steady rhythm of review and improvement, so the gains last after the launch energy fades.
“Would this still happen if the champion left?”
02Why efforts fail
Most improvement efforts fade within a year
Not because the method is wrong, but because it never becomes part of how teams run their week.
Common belief: Busy people mean a productive operation.
In practice: High utilisation often means long queues. Customers feel the queue, not the utilisation.
Common belief: Training people changes how they work.
In practice: Training builds understanding. Capability comes from using it on your own work, repeatedly.
Common belief: A digital board will keep us on track.
In practice: A board shows the work. It doesn’t tell a team what good looks like.
Common belief: External experts will drive the change.
In practice: They can start it. It lasts only when internal leaders and experts own it.
03Where to start
Start from your role
No big programme needed. Pick your role and see the first step that usually fits.
“How do I get every team improving without being in every room?”
Your first step
Start with a maturity assessment
See where every team stands, then build the internal experts who keep the loop running without you.
“My team is flat out. Why are we still late?”
Your first step
Start with the flow on one line
Find where work waits, then run the daily meeting on what is off track today.
“We have eighteen initiatives. Which ones are actually moving?”
Your first step
Start by seeing every team at once
Fewer priorities, visible progress, and a shared language for improvement across sites.
“How do we know the training changed anything?”
Your first step
Start with training tied to real gaps
Tie each programme to a gap the team found itself, so learning goes straight into practice.
04Product
One platform for the whole loop
Assess how each team works, improve on the gaps, learn why each practice works, and measure whether it sticks.
Introduction to flow orientation45 min · 3 modulesCompleted
Principles of flow orientation58 min · 3 modules26 min left
What is daily management?45 min · 3 modulesStart
Implementing performance management45 min · 3 modulesComing soon
UnderstandStandardiseVisualiseRoutinisePerformance7.05.85.14.4Flow6.25.03.73.2Resource5.54.32.92.1Improvement6.65.24.02.8
Lowest cell: Routinise × Resource, 2.116 capabilities · scored 1–10 · one team average, never individuals
We have a board where anyone can see, at a glance, whether we are on target today.
12345678910
Not at all like usExactly like us
Only the team’s average is ever shown. Not to your manager, not to us.
OngoingLS
Cut downtime response to 5 min
NewPE
Reduce rejections line 2
Rejections on line 2 are at 4.8% against a target of 2%. Initial analysis indicates temperature variation in the hardening step.
Average28 April0/10
PlannedJN
Reduce work-in-progress inventory
Inventory between operations is 4.2 days. Kanban pilot for item family A21 starts in May. Target: 1.5 days by Q3.
High16 April0/10
PlannedMA
Reduce setup time line 4
Line 4 setup time averages 62 minutes, 27 over target. Analysis shows 14 minutes can be done while the line runs.
High16 April0/10
Compare3 teamsLast 3 reviews
Crusher line 3Concentrator 2Underground haulage
05Results
What changes when teams fix the flow
Three organisations, three kinds of work. In each, the people doing the work found where it waited, and removed it.
Bauer Media Outdoor
A client quote took a day; now it takes two hours, once sales and booking began working as one team around each request.
Out-of-home media, Sweden
Read the case (opens in a new tab)
Apotekstjänst
Over 1,000 improvements made by the company’s own teams, with every employee taking part, not only management.
Medicine dose dispensing
Read the interview (opens in a new tab)
06The research
The research behind Hups
Most organisations measure how busy their people and machines are. This Is Lean argues that you should measure how long work waits on the way to the customer. That shift, from resource efficiency to flow efficiency, is where Hups starts.
Niklas Modig & Pär ÅhlströmAuthors of This Is Lean (2012) · Researchers at the Stockholm School of Economics
350,000+
copies sold
20
languages
1,000+
keynotes by Niklas Modig
40
countries he has spoken in
Talks by Niklas Modig
Opens on YouTube
TEDxUmeå
The efficiency paradox
Why making each team more efficient can make the whole organisation slower, and what to look at instead.
Watch on YouTubeTalkEricsson R&D Summit
This Is Lean, in short
A summary of a 70-minute lecture on the book, for an R&D audience.
Watch on YouTubeTEDxSSE
“Lean” on yourself
What Niklas learned in Toyota’s plants in Japan, applied to everyday life.
Watch on YouTube07FAQ
Common questions
Short, direct answers. Still unsure? Ask one of our experts.
What is operational excellence, in one sentence?
It is an organisation’s ability to deliver more value to customers, more reliably, by steadily improving how work flows, led by the people who do the work.
How is it different from lean or Six Sigma?
Lean and Six Sigma are methods. Operational excellence is the result you want: an operation that keeps improving. Lean focuses on flow and waste, Six Sigma on reducing variation. Most organisations borrow from both. The method matters less than whether teams use it every week.
Is it the same as continuous improvement?
Continuous improvement is the daily habit. Operational excellence is what the habit produces over time, across teams and sites. You get the second only by sustaining the first.
What is flow efficiency?
Flow efficiency is the share of total lead time in which someone is actually working on the thing the customer is waiting for. Resource efficiency is how busy each person or machine is. You can have high resource efficiency and very low flow efficiency at the same time. That is why busy operations can still be slow.
How long before we see results?
The first improvements often come within weeks. Proving that they last takes longer. Measure where you are today, measure again after a few months, and compare.
Can we do this without outside help?
Yes, and in the long run you should. Outside experts can speed up the first cycles, but the method has to live with your own leaders and internal experts. If it leaves when the consultants do, it was never yours.
Who is behind operationalexcellence.com?
The site is published by Hups, a Stockholm company that combines software, training and coaching to help operations build their own improvement capability. The method grows out of the research behind This Is Lean, co-written by Hups expert Niklas Modig and Pär Åhlström.
Next step
Not sure which step comes first?
Plan your first step with an expert
Book 30 minutes with a Hups expert. We’ll look at where your teams are today and suggest a first step.
See the product
Assess, improve, learn and measure, for every team.